The Truth About Crime And Sexual Assault At Occupy Wall Street

When you read stories like this (via the NY Post), it's impossible not to wonder what's going on in Zuccotti Park right now:

Zuccotti Park has become so overrun by sexual predators attacking women in the night that organizers felt compelled to set up a female-only sleeping tent yesterday to keep the sickos away.

It sounds like a nightmare. A space overrun with dangerous people waiting to prey on defenseless women.

We were struggling to wade through all of the rumors we were hearing — We heard that the police were telling convicts and bums to, "take it to Zuccotti", if they were causing disturbances in public. We heard that the police would stand and watch as things in the park got out of hand. That some of the protesters were drinking and doing drugs at night. That there were anarchists in Zuccotti urging violence against the police.

What we found on the ground in Zuccotti paled in comparison to what we read in the papers, but to say that there is no danger would be a lie.

As one protester, Grayson, told us, "I think it's safer here than walking the streets of New York." He told us his girlfriend safely walks around at night to go the bathroom at McDonald's. Grayson himself has started working the community-watch and says the campers can hear everything that goes on in the dark. After all, they're staying in a tent in the thick of the park, towards the eastern side.

But that's just it. The park now has sides, and the eastern side is the friendliest. Nan, the woman who set up the female-only sleeping tent, told us that there is a "rich" section, a work section (where protesters cook etc), an occupiers section (for daily activity), and a section on the west side that is seedier, to say the least.

Not to say that Nan doesn't think the homeless and other wanderers have a place in the occupation. They march, she said, and they hold the park for protesters when they're out at a demonstration. But winter is coming, the nights come quickly, and since the protesters think the NYPD not only won't help them, but is out to get them, Nan decided the women needed to stick together.

And they're doing that in one of a few expensive military tents that have popped up around the encampment. They can sleep 16 people, and according to NBC New York, the protesters just placed an order for 27 more of them.

Those tents may be able to shield the protesters from the elements outside, but there's no telling what will happen from within. We spoke with young self-proclaimed Anonymous anarchists who have come out of confrontations with the police charged with felonies and misdemeanors. They, like many others, believe the police have infiltrated the camp. And they don't trust The New York Post, or many other local journalists either, because they believe most news outlets want to discredit the movement.

They have their own way of talking about what goes on at the camp, and it seems like everyone else does too. Nan told us that the young woman who had been assaulted last week was drunk, and that opinion turned against the man who allegedly assaulted her because she is white and he is black.

Without an official voice to confirm the truth, though, you just have to listen, see everything, and judge for yourself.